Ominous Sky

WOW.

I never thought Friday night's race would be this intense. Sure, it was raining all day, and sure, the clouds looked dark and ominous when we left the harbor. But for the last two races there was very little wind, we did lots of sitting around, waiting for the wind to pick up. So this time I even thought about bringing a book to read on the boat, thinking it would be kind of like the two races we had prior to this.

Not so.

Looking back now, I think our boat was probably doomed not to take a finish place from the beginning. First of all, our skipper Stu wanted to cancel the race. He called me at 2 o'clock, he was asking whether I still want to go because it was raining pretty hard at the time. But I convinced him that we should do the race, rain or shine. Soon after I got off the phone with him, the rain tapered off.

Once we got the boat prepared, we were somewhat late for the race already. We left the harbor and in his hurry to get us to the starting line, our skipper Stu ran the boat aground on some shallow right outside of the harbor. Thankfully we didn't get stuck bad, we only had to reverse the engine to get us out of the shallows. We made it to the starting line with seconds to spare. Stu joked that was our best start ever... actually, he might not be joking at all.

We raised our spinnaker sail and the wind picked us right up. We were cruising along the shore at between 8 and 9 knots, the fastest going we've had since I joined the crew. We were heading straight for our next mark and making good time, everything was looking great, so everyone got a chance to relax, eat a sandwich, and have a beer. Once we were near our next mark, the Point No Point marker, we had to do a couple of tacks to go around it. Now our boat is somewhat under staffed than normal, with the regular foredeck on vacation in Michigan and another guy at a concert somewhere. We had Joe, who was filling in for one of the regulars. He was an experienced sailor, but he was not very familiar with this particular boat. Our most experienced sailor was Scott, and he had to coach all three of us (Joe, Stu, and myself) through a tack with the spinnaker sail. We did the first tack without a hitch, but on the second tack, we lost it somehow. I don't know exactly what happened, but all the sudden our boat started to turn in an unexpected direction while tilting sharply to the port side, the spinnaker sail started wrapping around, and Scott started yelling, "Dump it!! DUMP IT!!!" We let go the spinnaker sheets and it flew out of our hands, next thing I know the spinnaker sail was flapping in the wind like a huge flag attached to the top of the hull. "We are taking the spinnaker down." Scott said calmly, and no one disagreed.

We pulled up the heavy jib sail, and things once again went back to looking good. I was the most inexperienced person onboard, but I've had lots of practice tacking and trimming the jib, so we were in good hands. We weren't going as fast as when we had the spinnaker up, but we were still making pretty good time, going between 6 and 7 knots. After rounding Point No Point, we headed for Point Lookout. The sun had already set, and the dark ominous looking clouds were going away, soon the sky was lit up brilliantly by the stars. Before the race I had wondered how we were going to see our way around the boat, so I brought my headlamp just in case. Now I realized that it was unnecessary, the stars were bright enough that we could see our way around the boat, except when we needed to read the charts. I couldn't remember the last time I saw the stars like this. It was inspiring to look at, brought me back to my earlier years, when I would stare at the stars as a little kid and wonder what's out there. Scott pointed at the Milky Way and said, "That is the reason why I don't live in DC." And I totally agreed with him.

I don't know if you've ever seen bioluminescence in the water, but they are so cool. There are different kinds of bioluminescence around the world, the one I'm talking about is some sort of algae that's present in salt water only. They give off a faint green glow when the water is disturbed by a boat, a paddle, or a hand. The first time I saw them was on a kayak camping trip at Canaveral National Seashore in Florida. Every time I dip my paddle in the water I would see tens and maybe hundreds of tiny green flashes. Friday night was the second time I saw these bioluminescence. They glow in the wake of our sailboat, hundreds of tiny little green flashes, trailing our boat. Sometimes the wave would splash onto the deck, and we would see little green dots on the ropes, on my life jacket, my pants. It was so awesome. Once in a while you even see a luminescent jellyfish, which is about a golf ball sized glow behind our boat. That was my first time seeing luminescent jellyfish.

Of course, we were racing, so we didn't just sit around starring at the stars and the bioluminescence all night. Once we rounded Point Lookout, got into the Potomac River then the St. Mary's River, we started doing lots of tacks. Even though the sky is clear, the wind was still strong, and the wave pretty high (higher than I've ever seen on this sailboat anyway). Sometimes it felt like we were flying through water, even though we were only going about 6 knots. The ride was bumpy, we were bouncing up and down when we hit a big wave. The boat sometimes tilted at a precariously angle, with one edge of the deck right next to the water. The wave would splash onto my face when I'm trimming the sail. Going from one side of the boat to the other was more of climbing instead of walking. A couple of times when I was skirting the sail and I slipped, my foot ended up in the water. The water felt warm though, I thought that was a plus, in case I fell in. Whoever said sailing is light exercise doesn't know what they're talking about. You try pulling in a sail by a rope when it's fully filled by a strong wind and tell me that it's light exercise. I was working so hard that night when I woke up next day, I was sore all over the place, and I had bruises around my knees from bracing them against the boat to get better leverage.

But alas, even though we worked so hard, and we were doing so well, we weren't mean to finish the race. When we were just two marks away from the finish line, and through one of our tacks, I heard Stu yelled something angrily in the back, and then "Let out the jib sheet!! LET IT OUT!! LET IT OUT!!" So for the second time in the night, we had to dump the line. After our boat slowed down, I turned to look what's wrong, and found out that our tiller had broke, leaving a short stub connected to the rudder. Stu can use to turn the rudder somewhat, but without the tiller he would not be able to control the boat under a full sail. We had to withdraw from the race. It was quite depressing, being so close to the finish line. We put engine in the back of the boat, and slowly make our way to the finish line. It was 2:30 a.m. when we docked. I was totally beat. When I got back to my apartment, I just dropped on my bed and went out like a light.

Remembering that night now, it was one of the most awesome experiences I've had in my life. I now understand why sailing is so addicting to so many people. I think I'm just becoming one of them now.